China suppresses Muslim population by forced abortion, sterilization
Chinese government has imposed wide abortion and sterilizations on Uighur Muslims in the country as part of measures to slash the population of Muslims, latest reports have revealed.
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China suppresses Muslim population by forced abortion, sterilization
Chinese government has imposed wide abortion and sterilizations on Uighur Muslims in the country as part of measures to slash the population of Muslims, latest reports have revealed.
The Chinese government is taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighur Muslims as part of a sweeping campaign to curb its Muslim population, even as it encourages other non-Muslim majority to have more children.
While there have previously been individual reports on forced birth control, the practice is far more widespread and systematic than known, an AP investigation has revealed.
The population control measures are backed by mass detention both as a threat and as a punishment for failure to comply.
Parents of three or more are ripped away from their families unless they can pay huge fines. Police raid homes, terrifying parents as they search for hidden children.
The result of the birth control campaign is a climate of terror around having children among the minority community of Muslims.
Birth rates in the mostly Uighur regions of Hotan and Kashgar plunged by more than 60% from 2015 to 2018, the latest year available in government statistics. Across the Xinjiang region, birth rates continue to plummet, falling nearly 24% last year alone — compared to just 4.2% nationwide, statistics show.
China’s foreign minister has so far derided the story as “fabricated” and “fake news,” saying the government treats all ethnicities equally and protects the legal rights of minorities.
But while equal on paper, in practice Han Chinese are largely spared the abortions, sterilizations, IUD insertions and detentions for having too many children that are forced on Xinjiang’s other ethnicities, interviews and data show. Some rural Muslims are punished even for having the three children allowed by the law.
German researcher Adrian Zenz said in a report that in 2018, 80% of all new IUD placements in China were performed in Xinjiang, while only 1.8% of the population lives there.
